


Conversation at the End of the Watchful Peace, or “A Departure Deferred”

by SusanaR



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe G version (DH AU G) [49]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Humor, Backstory, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Kings & Queens, Male Friendship, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 23:09:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11793381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: Thranduil needs a listening ear, and Theli just happens to be there.





	1. Thranduil and Theli

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The elven OCs Queen Minaethiel (Thranduil's wife), Queen Felith (Oropher's wife), Fileg, and Nestorion who are mentioned in this chapter belong to Emma (AfricanDaisy) and Kaylee, and have been borrowed with their kind permission for me to use in the Greenwood stories in my AU, which is distinct from their AU. Emma and Kaylee's Doriath stories can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/25743 and here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/656492. More of their Greenwood stories can be read in the files section here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LOTR_DFIC/info
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> Quote:
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> “The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.” – Miguel de Cervantes

The Hall of the Elven King in the north of the Great Green Wood was massive. The elves who dwelt there called it merely “the North Hall.” To many an eye, it was beautiful as well. Visitors had described the North Hall as a graceful marriage of the spirit of wood and tree depicted in stone and air.

 

But to Thranduil, the North Hall was a symbol of failure. His failure. His failure to keep his people safe, to keep the south and middle of the Wood free of evil creatures. And, most painful of all, his failure to keep his wife and three oldest blood children alive. Not to mention a friend he loved like a brother, and young elves he loved as dearly as his own nieces and nephews.

 

It was autumn now, and coming on two years since Thranduil and his people had been forced to abandon the Greenwood’s former capital in Emyn Duir, the dark mountains in the middle of the Greenwood. It had been over an age since they’d been forced to cede their Second Age capital of Amon Lanc. That elegant white stone palace of Thranduil’s happy elflinghood memories, and the town surrounding it, were now fouled and haunted beyond redemption, and called Dol Guldur. Thranduil had personally had to take a hand in further ruining their former home when he led a group of elves and Wizards to flushe Sauron’s spirit from the place, at the beginning of the Watchful Peace.

 

Now that Watchful Peace was over. And the elves of the Greenwood had been forced to once again take refuge in the North Hall. Carved out of a great mountainous cavern set high above the woods, the North Hall was almost impervious to attack by anything smaller than a true army. And even an army would have to get through the woods, and that was no easy thing. From the top level of the North Hall, on a clear day, Thranduil could see as far south and west as the ruins of his old capital of Emyn Duir, and as far north and east as the Gray Mountains.

 

The autumn-gowned trees around the North Hall spoke to Thranduil. As did the forest between the North Hall and the northeastern edge of the Wood. To the south and west . . . some of the trees still spoke to Thranduil. But the tales and songs brought by the whispering winds through the leaves stopped half way between Emyn Duir and the North Hall. Half-way! When this time last year, the friendly leafy voices had stopped only a quarter of the way from Emyn Duir. Thranduil and his people were losing the Wood that fast.

 

Now Thranduil stood before a large window on the very top level of the North Hall, watching the trees to the south and west, and listening to the tales they brought him. Listening, and thinking. About his duty to this Wood, and to the elves who lived there. And his more personal duty to his elfling son, Legolas. And to a lesser extent, his duty to his foster-son, Thalion Aerandirion. But Thalion was an ellon grown, and fully committed to the fight to save the Wood. Legolas was still an elfling, a twenty-one year old elfling, the equivalent of a seven year old human boy. And now Thranduil’s duty as a father was in conflict with his duty as a King.

 

In the past, when Thranduil had faced such disastrous divisions, he’d had his wife and best friend Minaethiel to help him steer a way through them. Now, he did not, and he felt as if he was navigating through a trackless wilderness without compass or map to guide him.

 

He still had friends, kin, and sworn-brothers of his heart. And many of them were not shy in offering him their opinions. And yet . . . none of them were the King of the Wood, or Legolas’ father. And so Thranduil had come here, to the quiet peace of rustling leaves and rushing wind.

 

Here, where the only voices speaking to him were trees, with their lack of concern in elven affairs. Although Thranduil’s leafy friends weren’t entirely neutral in this matter. The trees didn’t want Thranduil to leave them to sail west-over-water, and they didn’t want Legolas to leave them, either. But still, they were willing to let Thranduil make up his own mind, without speaking to him of anything more significant than the approach of winter, or which squirrel was making a home high in which leaves. The cattier willows teased the deciduous trees for losing their leaves, while the pines envied the oaks their chatty squirrel nests, with their live-in furry bug catchers.

 

Thranduil’s attention turned from the window as he heard the sound of someone approaching on the stairs. He was surprised to have his solitude disturbed this quickly. Those closest to him knew that he only retreated to the highest reaches of the North Hall when he wished to be left alone.

 

And yet the step-pause-step continued up the stairs. As if the elf who was coming to pester him was not quite sound in all his limbs.

 

Thranduil decided to stay quiet. He was mostly hidden where he stood beside the greatest of the windows. Whoever it was who was climbing the stairs now would have to know to turn right into this little-used sitting room rather than left, towards the more popular galleries used for star-gazing and dancing.

 

And yet the step-pause-step continued, all the way into Thranduil’s hiding place. A short elf with unruly waves of light-brown hair only partially confined by braids, dressed in the dark blue robes of a healer, appeared in the doorway. Then he promptly tripped over the edge of the beautiful green and gold carpet. Thranduil winced as the flask of cherry colored liquid in the elf’s hands went flying all over the worn but expensive carpet, itself once a gift from Thranduil’s cousin Lord Celeborn to Thranduil’s father King Oropher, upon Oropher’s first becoming King of the Greenwood.

 

The elven healer, of course, was Theli. His real name was Ecthelion. He had been born the son of Eurig Eldunchil, although since Theli had been disowned for leaving his reclusive Nandorin village, he now used the father-name Erynion. That name meant son of the forest. It meant that Theli was an elf without a father, or mother, or close kin.

 

Although Theli did have younger cousins, the adopted sons – and heirs – of Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel. And Thranduil had sent Theli to visit them, in the wake of Lord Celeborn insisting that Thranduil should take his people away from Emyn Duir and to the North Hall for their safety, and for Thranduil’s.

 

Theli, and Thranduil’s cousin and sworn-brother Fileg, had supported Lord Celeborn. Vocally, and publicly. Although Thranduil had since had to concede that the argument hadn’t been meant to be public, it had just gotten out of hand.

 

As had Thranduil’s temper. He’d ordered that, since Fileg and Theli agreed with Lord Celeborn rather than their own King, that they should join Celeborn in Lothlorien. Fileg’s family had chosen to go with him. Thranduil had called it an exile, although he’d known even at the time that he was overreacting. So Fileg, and Theli, had been in Lothlorien, patrolling with the Goldenwood’s militia.

 

Their patrol had been ambushed by orcs eager to find the secret ways into the Goldenwood. Lady Galadriel’s son Orophin had gotten a vision of the approaching attack, and had been able to warn the militia patrol almost in time. Then, struck by another vision, Orophin had been helpless to prevent an orc striking him on the head and toppling him from his horse during the attack. Theli had gone to aid his cousin, and the two had been dragged away by the retreating orcs. The beasts had tortured them for several days before the rescue force from the Goldenwood could reach them.

 

Theli had lied to their captors and claimed to be the White Lady’s son, so that the bulk of the orcs’ cruel attentions had been focused on him rather than on his concussed younger cousin Orophin. After they were rescued, it had taken months of the best treatments the healers of Lothlorien could provide before Theli was fit to ride home to the Greenwood.

 

During that time, Theli had apparently made peace with Thranduil’s cousin Celeborn. Or at least so Thranduil judged, from the long list of ‘care and feeding of’ instructions that Thranduil and also Master Nestorion had received from Lord Celeborn, in relation to not only Celeborn’s middle son Orophin, who had come to Greenwood to replace the Goldenwood’s previous officious lout of an ambassador, but also Theli.

 

Thranduil had found the list vaguely irritating on a number of levels. On the one hand, he found himself somewhat envious because cousin Celeborn, whom he loved like an uncle, was extending his paternal affections to yet another elf. That wasn’t particularly kind of him, but Thranduil was honest enough to admit that it played a factor in his annoyance. He was also perturbed because Celeborn was telling him what to do with one of his own elves, when it had been in Celeborn’s service that Theli had been injured in the first place.

 

And yet Thranduil was most upset because it had been as a result of his impatient, angry order that Theli had been in the Goldenwood, in the first place. And it had only been luck that it had been Theli nearly crippled, and not Fileg, whom Thranduil loved like a brother. There was guilt, there, too. Thranduil was fond of Theli, and didn’t like that part of him was grateful that it had been Theli who’d been captured with Orophin, and not Fileg, or one of Fileg’s sons.

 

But it had been Theli who had been captured and tortured and then pain-stakingly and as of yet imperfectly put back together. And it was he who was currently trying to pick himself up off of the drenched carpet, swearing like a Dol Amroth pirate-turned-sailor all the while.

 

“If you put half as much effort into walking as you do into cursing inventively,” Thranduil drawled as he walked over to give the younger elf a hand to his feet, “Then you would be far less of a hazard to my carpets.”

 

Theli made a face at his King, not at all intimidated by the royal presence. But then, he never had been. Theli followed and served Thranduil not because Thranduil was the Aran, but because he liked and respected Thranduil as an elf. If he hadn't, he would have taken any one of the several offers he'd received from other rulers, and packed up and joined them. The mixed blessing of this more personal loyalty was that when Theli thought Thranduil was being an idiot, he felt no compunction not to say so. And, being Theli, he generally did so in the bluntest way possible.

 

And he did so again. “Well, if you weren’t hiding away up here without having told anyone that you sprained your knee on yesterday’s patrol,” Theli accused cheekily, “then I wouldn’t have had to spill cherry flavored pain killer all over your rug.”

 

“I did not sprain my knee,” Thranduil retorted, incensed, “Merely twisted it. And I would not need you to flavor my medicine the way you do for an elfling, in any case.”

 

Theli made a doubtful noise. Thranduil considered kicking him, but as Theli was still favoring his left leg, decided against it. Instead he snapped, “Sit down, idiot, before you fall down. Are you even supposed to be climbing stairs without a cane yet?”

 

“Probably not,” Theli admitted with a rueful smile, “But I couldn’t very well use a cane and hold the medicine, now could I?”

 

“Putting a stopper in the flask didn’t occur to you?”

 

“No, it needs to breathe. You see . . .”

 

“Please don’t elaborate. Nor do I want to know what was in it. I don’t need a pain-killer, you nuisance of a healer.”

 

“What do you need, then?” Theli asked, still standing awkwardly, with his weight off his left leg.

 

“Sit, you cursed stubborn fool. It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order.”

 

Theli made another face, but he did sit down. He didn’t say anything else.

 

Enjoying the temporary quiet, Thranduil turned his attention back to the window and the forest. Rather to his own surprise, he found himself confessing, “I am trying to decide whether my duty is to leave the Wood and sail for the West with my elfling son. Or to stay, and in so doing bind us both to our people’s fate.”

 

Thranduil heard Theli take a deep breath behind him, but the healer didn’t speak at first. In the silence, Thranduil marveled that he had even brought up such a personal issue with someone outside his most intimate circle of family and friends. But then, perhaps it did make sense, in a way. Thranduil could ask Theli because it didn't really matter what Theli thought. Thranduil could take his advice if it made sense, and leave it if it didn't, and there wasn't much emotional attachment either way.

 

Theli didn't take offense to being ignored or even berated, or even to having things thrown at him. The only thing that Thranduil had ever done which had hurt Theli's feelings was to exile the young elf for contradicting him in front of other elven rulers. Thranduil had already decided not to do that, again.

 

And if Thranduil had broached this sensitive topic with someone closer to his heart, it could have been more of a problem. His closest friends and family . . . their emotions, their feelings, were so strong that Thranduil did not always feel as if he had room for his own. Sometimes he just shut down. Other times he felt too much, and his decisions then...were not always the best.

 

At length, Theli spoke, “Can you leave?” he asked, “I mean, is it an option?”

 

“I am a father. It should be. I should take my son somewhere safe.”

 

All was still again after Thranduil’s answer. Theli was quiet, and even the wind through the trees had ceased. It was as if the whole forest was holding its breath. At length, Thranduil turned to regard Theli, and raised a demanding, inquisitive brow.

 

“Are you asking my opinion?” Theli asked, clearly surprised.

 

Thranduil waited a beat and then smiled sardonically, “Obviously,” he drawled, with the implication being that Theli was a bit slow on the uptake.

 

Theli smiled uncertainly, “And are you going to send me back to Lothlorien if you don't like what I say?”

 

“Are you going to announce that you think I am doing the wrong thing in front of Celeborn and my court, in such a way that it seems as if you think your King to be a fool?” Thranduil asked in reply.

 

“Oh,” said Theli lamely, “I never saw it like that. What I said that day, I mean.”

 

Thranduil laughed, “Imagine that,” he marveled.

 

“Well, in any case, they're not here,” Theli ventured cautiously, “Lord Celeborn, or your court, I mean.”

 

“And you don't go telling tales,” Thranduil said with somewhat reluctant fondness, “Not unless it is a....” he paused and with a sneer, elaborated, “a 'healer thing,' as you so eloquently put it.”

 

“No. I don't,” Theli affirmed. After a pause, he finally answered, “You could leave, with Legolas. Or you could stay. Whichever you do, you will make people angry, disappoint them. Anger and disappoint yourself, too, either way.”

 

“Could I leave?” Thranduil wondered aloud, although mostly to himself. He thought of the cursed ring, the ring that he had once, in a moment of valiant madness, spread a rumor about. A rumor that it was hidden, somewhere in the Greenwood. A ring in a forest of rings. That lie predated Legolas by over 2,500 years. And there were so many lives in the balance, keeping the lie, protecting the Wood. In the end, it might all be for nothing, but Thranduil would not give it up without a fight. And he didn't know if anyone else would fight as hard, as smart, as fiercely. And it was his fight. He’d started it, curse it all, and he’d finish it.

 

“Would you be asking the question, if you couldn't?” Theli asked quietly.

 

Thranduil brushed one of his warrior’s braids behind an ear, pondering on that question, “I must ask the question, in order to rule it out. To say I considered it,” he said, equally quiet.

 

Theli sighed, then offered, “You can only do what you can do, Aran-nin. Trying to do more is . . . noble. But trying when you know that you can't . . . if you know that there's still going to be a fight afterwards and the one you can't win may well end you so that you'll be leaving the next fight that you could win for someone else. . . that's not brave so much as foolhardy. I think.”

 

“You left your people. The Nandor of the Northern Wood,” Thranduil said. It was a statement more than an accusation, but it carried weight all the same.

 

“I wanted something else,” Theli explained, his dark blue eyes regretful but not apologetic.

 

Thranduil’s lip curled in frustration at Theli’s avoidance of the question, “You knew who you were, there. Who you were being groomed to be. You're not that oblivious.” Theli had never said that he had been being trained to be his grandfather Eldun’s heir. But Thranduil had gathered it, from one or two things Theli had let slip over the years, and from conversations with other disaffiliated far northern Nandor.

 

Theli tilted his head in thought. After a few pensive moments, he answered, "I suppose I did. I . . . never really realized it, before. But I wasn't him, that wasn't me. If I'd stayed there I would have become someone else, and I would never have stopped resenting myself, resenting my grandfather, resenting the elves I was supposed to lead and protect. Even if I'd liked him, how he was and how he led, I couldn't have stayed. It wasn’t me.”

 

“I do not think that I would be so unfair as to resent my last son, my baby, for inspiring me to make the decision to keep him safe,” Thanduil said, once again speaking more to himself than to Theli.

 

“Can you help how you feel?” Theli asked, with unaccustomed tact, “You can put things in perspective, and try to think of them differently, but you feel how you feel.”

 

Thranduil sighed, wishing that he could be outside, amongst the trees. But even so close to the North Hall, he would have needed an escort. And this conversation shouldn’t be overheard. Even though his decision was, “I will not leave. Even if I could, I would not.”

 

Theli was unable to completely hide a sigh of relief at that. Nor were the trees, for just then the breeze started up again.

 

“So much for a set of impartial ears,” Thranduil scolded his audience, both the elven and the woodland.

 

“I did my best. I thought it was fine enough!” Theli protested, his words accompanied by a vulgar mannish shrug.

 

“Barely,” Thranduil teased, although someone who didn’t know him well would have taken the word as a scold.

 

Theli grinned back at him unrepentantly, “Barely is fine enough,” the younger elf retorted cheekily.

 

“With that attitude, it is no wonder that you are the despair of both stillroom and training yard,” Thranduil jested back acerbically.

 

Theli gave him another cheerful grin.

 

More seriously, Thranduil confided, “Many will say that I should send Legolas oversea, even if I do not go myself. For his safety.”

 

“But is that the best thing for Legolas?” Theli asked, tilting his head in thought again.

 

“You were there when he was born, when I was off fighting the rumors of dark creatures returning to the south,” Thranduil reminded Theli, “You looked into his eyes, and saw the sails. Part of him is already in the West. It would be safer there, for him.”

 

“I saw his eyes, then,” Theli conceded, before going on the offensive, “But I see his eyes now, too. They light up for our trees, and for you, and for his family and his friends, here.”

 

“He is young. He would adjust. I did, when my family moved here from Lindon.”

 

“But who does he even know in the West?” Theli protested, “A few minor functionaries and distant cousins?”

 

Thranduil lifted a brow at that, then recounted sardonically, “His grandmother, a full complement of great-grandparents, a brace of great aunts and uncles, a slew of cousins...”

 

“Yes, yes,” Theli said, waving a dismissive hand, “but he doesn't know them, and they don't know him. Besides, who would you send with him? Anyone who could not withstand a second siege has already left. Those who remain intend to do their part. Anyone would go if you asked, for Legolas. But whom can you spare? Whom don't you need, being honest with yourself? Whom don't you need, who would also be enough support for Legolas?”

 

“I think that I could do without anyone, if it meant that Legolas would be safe and happy.”

 

Theli shook his head skeptically, “He's a quiet elfling, Thranduil.”

 

“Not that quiet,” Thranduil pointed out wryly, thinking of any number of bits of mischief, culminating perhaps in Legolas having been more or less an unwitting accomplice in the plots of the Elrondionnath, which had sent them fleeing Emyn Duir for the North Hall a whole year before Thranduil was willing to concede defeat.

 

Theli’s mouth flickered into a smile, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, “Well, he is a self-contained child. All that has happened, has only made him more so. And he is...his roots are here.”

 

“He is young.”

 

“But he already hears the trees, speaks to them.”

 

“So?” asked Thranduil harshly. Thandrin and Eryntheliel had heard them even earlier. It hadn’t saved them.

 

“The trees speak to him of meaningful things, Thranduil,” Theli persisted where other elves would have just stopped talking, “Where to find baby spiders, and how to walk the dangerous paths and live. They speak to him of the darkness. What he knows he cannot unknow. He would be alone in the sunny West, alone with the memories of monsters in his head."

 

Thranduil considered that, thinking, among other things, that he needed to talk to the trees, and to his son.

 

Theli took the King’s silence as permission to continue, “Legolas was born with sails in his eyes, yes. But those eyes now, they glow like the clear pools that shine in the dark, lit by phosphorescent stones, when he speaks of learning all he can to stay here, to be part of this fight. He is...." Theli took a deep breath, and pursed his lips, before pointing out, "You could die, you know."

 

Thranduil sighed at the non sequitur, “Obviously,” he scoffed.

 

“If you died, or if you sailed, we'd lose our greatest advantage in this fight.”

 

Thranduil frowned, “My elfling son will not replace an age worth of experience leading the war against the Enemy, Ecthelion.”

 

“No. But he feels the forest like you do, as far south as Emyn Duir, Thranduil. Still, he hears those trees, even though we've been in the North Hall for several years now.”

 

Thranduil paused in thought again. That had been one of their big advantages, in the fight to keep the Wood, that he could hear the trees from border to border. His heart contorted, because he would keep Legolas here, for that. That was how badly he wanted to win, that he wanted them all to survive, that he would burn his child on the altar of that cause. He spared a moment to pray that his wife would forgive him.

 

Theli, who could occasionally be quite perceptive, must have read some of that, either on Thranduil’s face or in his eyes, because the younger elf said kindly, “You can think of it that way. And some would blame you. There is no decision you can make that won't make you angry, and sad. But I think that sending Legolas away would be the wrong decision for him. You can't replant just any sapling, even if the soil you're taking it from is rocky and thin and the place you're taking it too is rich and green.”

 

“Please don't speak in metaphors,” Thranduil ordered in exasperation, “You're not wise enough for that.”

 

Theli persisted, clearly a little bit hurt by Thranduil’s disapproval but not seriously so, “No, I'm going to keep going with that example, because I think it's good.”

 

“No,” said Thranduil firmly.

 

Theli sulked for a moment, then gave in with a sigh. "He could fade, I think," the frustrating young elf finally explained himself.

 

Thranduil snorted in disbelief, “Not once he met my mother.”

 

“Whom he does not know,” Theli reminded Thranduil, “And that's assuming he got that far. Your Legolas, well, he's never been that firmly rooted to this time and place. Digging him up, weakening those roots - he may not transplant well.”

 

Thranduil rolled his eyes in disgusted disbelief, “So, you are not only going to go back to your stupid tree metaphor, you are also serving as Galadriel's mouthpiece here . . .”

 

“No,” Theli disagreed, “Well, she said that, but I'm talking about the elfling I know. The one I've read ‘Little Elfling Makes a New Friend,’ and ‘The Tender-Toed Cat of the Tall Timbers’ and ‘Little Archer’s Adventure’ to every night this week. The one who patiently watches his elder foster-brother fletch, when other elflings, the few who remain, are playing in the great hall. The one who looks forward to the time he spends with you, the one who is still comfortable with you, the one who makes a disbelieving face when other elves say that the King is hard and cold, even though," Theli gave Thranduil a fond smile, "Legolas is getting better at hiding his disbelief. Thankfully for your reputation, your Grace."

 

Thranduil reached over to flick Theli’s ear for the lese majeste, all the while thinking that over.

 

“Also . . .” Theli began, only to trail off uncertainly.

 

“Also what, Ecthelion,” Thranduil asked with a sigh. When Theli still remained silent, the King tensed, realizing by the look on Theli’s face that whatever this thought was, he wouldn’t like it.

 

"Also what, Theli -mellon-nin?" Thranduil prompted more gently.

 

"Also..." The haunted look in Theli’s dark blue eyes said without words ‘I might be wrong - I'd like to be wrong - I hope to be wrong - don't be angry with me for even speaking this aloud.’

 

“Spit it out, mellon-nin,” Thranduil said, this time an order. He would have liked to promise that he wouldn't hold it against Theli, or be angry with him. But if whatever this was made Theli worried, Thranduil was afraid that he couldn’t make that promise.

 

Theli accepted that order, and bravely ventured, "Also, would Legolas be safe, in the West?"

 

Thranduil laughed harshly, “As compared to here? Where orcs and spiders lurk, and the very trees are turning against us again?”

 

“There is no such thing as complete safety,” Theli argued, “I grant you, this time, it is not ideal. But at least we know what the dangers are. We are accustomed to danger, as prepared for it as we can be. And the elves who are still here . . . we know them. We know how they act. We know, when something starts to go wrong with them. When they get too close to the edge. We know what to do, how to deal with that. Here, we don't take anything for granted.”

 

“Are you approaching a point?” Thranduil asked in a biting tone, “I do have other things to do today.”

 

Theli could have protested that it was Thranduil who had asked for his opinion, but he didn’t even seem to think of that. Instead he just said, “I'm getting to it. It's just, it's a really...odd point.”

 

“You're a really odd elf. Spit it out, already.”

 

Theli gave him a quick smile, “I am, at that. Well, I think that Legolas might be in danger in the West, too.”

 

“You do remember my mother, don't you?,” Thranduil asked disbelievingly, “The way that you are speaking, it truly seems as if you do not.”

 

“But would she be with him, every moment of every day?,” Theli pressed, “Does she know everyone who is around her, and all of their kin and people just recently sailed?”

 

“No. But she would be more alert than most, to any of that.”

 

Theli opened his mouth to speak again, but Thranduil raised a hand to stop him, because Theli’s poorly articulated ideas had started a chain of thoughts in his own mind.

 

“We are still missing elves, from the south, and near Emyn Duir. And some between there, and here,” Thranduil mused worriedly.

 

“Some of their settlements were burned out,” Theli recollected, “And we can hope that they sailed first, or died cleanly, but....”

 

“But the enemy is not above taking captives. Still, it is a one way trip to the west Theli. Once they sail, whatever they may have promised the Enemy in exchange for their freedom or their loved ones’ lives, they are beyond his reach, at least for now. Even you should know that.”

 

Theli shook his head stubbornly, “The Enemy is very persuasive. And he's not planning to stop with Middle Earth, if he wins. That's part of why you're not leaving, part of why Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn and Elrond are still here, too.”

 

Thranduil didn’t bother to correct that impression. He was still fighting because he was just too bloody stubborn, and because he loved this place too much to let it go. But Galadriel and Elrond might be that arrogant, to stay because they believed that the Valar hadn't fully taken into account the threat. And even Thranduil cared about the West, because people he loved lived there. But he didn't say any of that aloud. Instead, he thought about those possible former captives in the West. Damaged by the Enemy, might they believe that doing their hateful new master a service could somehow benefit them, even in the West?

 

Into the silence, Theli spoke up again, “If the Valar cheated to give Legolas to you and Minaethiel, in this time and place . . . then taking him off the board would be a coup, for the Enemy. Even in his long-game, even if Middle Earth is just a stop-gap.”

 

“And it would mean giving up an advantage, for us,” Thranduil said, still thinking. After a moment, he added, “I still believe that my mother could protect Legolas, she and the other kin who have sailed before us. They are a rather formidable group.”

 

“It only takes one mind-sick elf, Aran-nin,” Theli reminded him, “I think - from what Elladan has said of what Lady Galadriel and Mithrandir and Ingloren and Elrond have said - that the Maiar or the Valar or those who serve as their attendants would normally catch that sort of illness, in an elf recently sailed. But with so many having left for the West, and so many bearing scars and having pain needing healing...”

 

“An elf with foul purpose could be missed,” Thranduil concluded, taking Theli’s point.

 

Theli nodded, “The pain of the mindsick might be lost in the pain of so many. I don't know about the Valar's role in this, but the Maiar don't seem to be infallible. For instance, Mithrandir still isn't sure that you blame him for . . . what happened.” Theli was referring to the death of Thranduil’s wife and children and their entire escort. And to the message Thranduil’s wife had left in her own blood on her dress, while tied up in the spider’s cocoon, waiting to be eaten. She had used the last of her energy to draw the symbol the two of them had once used to make fun of the wizards when they passed notes back and forth to one another during meetings of the White Council.

 

Thranduil’s eyes narrowed, “What did Mithrandir say, and to whom?” he asked sharply.

 

Theli blinked, rather taken aback. But then he rallied and reported, “That you seemed to blame them, him and Saruman, but not Radagast, for it. But he wasn't sure, and if you do, he doesn't know why you would.”

 

Thranduil just looked at Theli.

 

“Oh!” said Theli, realizing he hadn’t answered the whole question, “He said so to Lady Galadriel, said Orophin to me.”

 

“And you said?” Thranduil prompted impatiently.

 

“That you've never trusted them - the miaower - because they don’t tell the whole truth about why they're here, and they don't give straight answers, and that you don't like them because they're condescending, and that you don't trust them because you don't like them, and you don't like them because they didn't come to the Greenwood during the siege until they needed something, and even then....”

 

Thranduil held up his hand. "Enough. Good."

 

“I don't think Mithrandir would arrange a whole-sale slaughter,” Theli said stubbornly.

 

Thranduil didn't really think so either, but someone had. And if it was Saruman rather than Mithrandir, Mithrandir was still culpable in Thranduil's eyes - he should have stopped his fellow, or warned him. Severely, Thranduil said, "We don't know what they would or wouldn't do, Theli. They are not elves. Or even men, or dwarves. They are not bound by the same rules, and they do not play by them."

 

“I think Mithrandir tries,” said Theli, in the tone of one who was trying to be fair to a friend.

 

“Badly,” Thranduil sneered.

 

Theli shrugged again, making Thranduil wince, and then said, “I try badly at a lot of things.”

 

Thranduil snorted in agreement. Then, deciding both that Theli had rested long enough, and that he’d thought of yet another way to make use of him, directed, “Speaking of . . . perhaps you should set to work cleaning that spilled cherry mess off of that valuable carpet, eh, my Lord Ecthelion? It was, after all, a gift from Lothlorien to Greenwood, from my cousin Celeborn.”

 

With a sigh, Theli took off the dark blue healer’s robe he wore over his patched green tunic and leggings, and then threw it over the mess, likely in hopes of soaking some of it up. Then he gave Thranduil a rueful, appealing smile, and asked, “Really, please, Thranduil, Aran-nin, DON’T send me back to Lothlorien right now. Even if you don't tell Lord Celeborn that I ruined another one of his carpets, somehow he'll know, and he'll be giving me THAT LOOK again, and he'd only just stopped doing that, at least most of the time.”

 

Thranduil couldn’t help but soften a bit at that, despite further evidence of his younger friend’s inattention, “I'm not going to send you to Lothlorien, Theli,” he promised brusquely, “Although perhaps I should, because you don't pay attention when your King speaks to you.”

 

Theli tilted his head quizzically, clearly going back over their conversation in his head, and still not catching Thranduil’s meaning.

 

With a sigh for needing to repeat himself, and a smirk for the shock he was going to give his inattentive young friend, Thranduil explained to Theli, “I'm going to ennoble you. Make you a lord of the great Green Wood, and an advisor on my council.”

 

Theli blinked at him owlishly, his cobalt blue eyes flying open wide in surprise. “Make me a lord? For . . . for ruining a carpet?”

 

“No, idiot, for a variety of reasons,” Thranduil said with exasperated affection, “Although perhaps a little bit for ruining carpets. Not just that carpet, but the first one you ruined, in my office at Amon Lanc. The one that is now in my study, and is still green around the edges. And the carpet you ruined when the wolverine bit Lithidrhen, when you tripped and knocked over a tea service and an inkpot to stop his bleeding. And . . . for a number of other ruined carpets.”

 

Theli just stared at Thranduil, his expressive face revealing shock, pride, affection, fear, and then, finally, acceptance. Thranduil was glad that Theli was frightened, or more properly, relieved. It meant that Theli understood what he was getting into – or rather, what Thranduil was pushing him into. Theli should be frightened. In the parlance of the healer’s Dol Amroth friends, the ship was sinking and he'd just been made an officer.

 

And Thranduil was even more glad to see the acceptance. If Theli had asked Thranduil not to ennoble him, if he'd asked and meant it, Thranduil would still have refused to take the elevation back. But it would have hurt Thranduil, to have Theli ask. And Theli didn't ask, he barely even showed that he wanted to ask. He just accepted, and moved on with his life, a joke on his lips.

 

“I'm going to try very badly at being a lord, you know,” Theli teased, his midnight blue eyes laughing.

 

“At least until my other advisors straighten you out, probably yes,” Thranduil agreed magnanimously, rather looking forward a bit to seeing those confrontations, “After that you'll still be doing a bad job, but you'll be trying very hard not to.”

 

“Why?” Theli asked again, his vivid eyes betraying his burning curiosity, “Besides the carpets, I mean.”

 

Silent now, Thranduil considered his answer. In truth, there were several reasons. Most important, for Legolas, because if Legolas did need to sail, if Thranduil changed his mind and sent his son home, or if Thranduil died and his cousin and heir-at-law until Legolas came of age chose to send Legolas west for safety, then Thranduil would amend his will to designate Theli as one of Legolas' guardians, should that come to pass. Being a lord would give Theli the status for that appointment as Legolas' healer and companion. Because Theli knew Legolas, and would provide some of the soil he'd taken root in, just by sailing with him. Because Theli knew that there were dangers everywhere, and would be on guard against them in only the way that someone who had seen the snakes in the peaceful grass all the way from the dark forest could be.

 

And because Theli was Nandorin, and was the grandson, and had been the unofficial heir presumptive, of the Witch of the Northern Woods. The latter was not generally known, but it was known, amongst some of the other lords and powerful of Greenwood who had once been Nandor, or had had dealings with the Nandor. Thranduil was going to need the Nandor as he'd never needed them before, and making Theli a lord signified that Thranduil knew that, and that he meant to take their concerns seriously. Seriously enough to ennoble the free-spirited but loyal and hard-working grandson who had been disowned by the feared Witch. Thranduil would stand for the Nandor, and fight for them, but he wouldn't bow to them. It was a good message, to send.

 

And it was sound politics, or at least a clever way to set the cat among the pigeons so that they’d give up on squawking at Thrandui for awhile. Many nobles and powerful merchant families had been displaced in their recent, unplanned flight from Emyn Duir to the North. What lands the elves of the Greenwood had reclaimed were being overtaken again by the Enemy. Now was a time when there would be much fighting over the scraps of the Wood which were left to them. And now, instead of focusing just on that, Thranduil's court could be vexed and offended that a mere healer and sometimes-soldier, one who spent more time on report than off it, had been ennobled and raised to Thranduil's council above them. Those who had little power would know that the King had not stopped looking for talent and loyalty to reward, even though his bounty was much smaller. It would be a good distraction, while more patient political minds than Thranduil's figured out how to do the best job of making all of them happy enough to continue to be cooperative and loyal.

 

In the end, Thranduil simply answered, "Because the next time you call me an idiot in front of three foreign rulers and half of the Wood, we can at least say that you were doing your job as a Lord and Advisor."

 

“I'm really not planning to do that again,” Theli assured his King, with complete and innocent sincerity.

 

Thranduil couldn’t hold back a huff of a laugh and a derisive smile.

 

Theli sniffed and lifted his chin stubbornly, as if he were offended. It amused Thranduil that Theli apparently thought that his King should have faith in Theli not to embarrass Thranduil and cause an international incident again.

 

“I'm going to go get cleaning supplies,” Theli informed him, still with that stubborn tilt to his chin which just radiated insult.

 

“Good luck,” Thranduil wished him with a smirk. Well Thranduil knew that the housekeeper and her staff would not be pleased! They were not afraid to give the King himself a tongue-lashing, let alone a junior royal healer. And they, too, remembered the many carpets Theli had ruined over the years, and not so fondly as Thranduil did!

 

Theli made a face, then asked hopefully, “If the house keeper twists my ear, can I tell her that I’m to be a Lord now, to make her let go?”

 

“Certainly,” Thranduil told him, not bothering to hide another smug smile, “And if you do try that, please do it while I'm around, so that I can enjoy the show.”

 

After that, Theli went off, muttering to himself. Thranduil couldn’t hear all of it, but he made out something about, ‘oh, such an ‘honor.' Just like a promotion - more work, more rules, and I'd give the extra pay back to avoid it...’

 

With a smile, the King noted that Theli’s limp was better, for having had the rest. But still, he shouldn’t be sending the younger elf off down several flights of stairs on his own, without a cane. It would take a bit of time for Theli to get that far, at his still slow pace. So Thranduil turned to the open window again, and listened to the rain and the trees. He felt better than he had before, and so did the trees. They were relieved that he knew that he would not leave them. Relieved that Legolas would not leave. And amused by Theli, as Thranduil was often unaccountably amused. The trees liked Theli. So did Thranduil, although he generally tried to hide it. He knew it, and Theli knew it, and Thranduil's children knew it, and mostly it wasn't important that anyone else know.


	2. Thranduil, Fileg and Linwe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theli isn’t the only visitor to Thranduil’s hiding place at the very top of the North Hall, where the soaring cavern cliff meets open air and forest vistas. The elven king and his dearest friend are three where once they were five; and the empty places still ache when the wind blows ‘round them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The elven OCs Queen Minaethiel (Thranduil's wife), Linwe, Fileg, and Nestorion who are mentioned in this chapter belong to Emma (AfricanDaisy) and Kaylee, and have been borrowed with their kind permission for me to use in the Greenwood stories in my AU, which is distinct from their AU. Emma and Kaylee's Doriath stories can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/25743 and here: http://archiveofourown.org/series/656492. More of their Greenwood stories can be read in the files section here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/LOTR_DFIC/info
> 
>  
> 
> Excerpt from Chapter 1:
> 
> With a smile, the King noted that Theli’s limp was better, for having had the rest. But still, he shouldn’t be sending the younger elf off down several flights of stairs on his own, without a cane. It would take a bit of time for Theli to get that far, at his still slow pace. So Thranduil turned to the open window again, and listened to the rain and the trees. He felt better than he had before, and so did the trees. They were relieved that he knew that he would not leave them. Relieved that Legolas would not leave. And amused by Theli, as Thranduil was often unaccountably amused. The trees liked Theli. So did Thranduil, although he generally tried to hide it. He knew it, and Theli knew it, and Thranduil's children knew it, and mostly it wasn't important that anyone else know.

Well before the time Thranduil had estimated that it would take his limping friend to reach the stairwell down into the more frequented floors of the North Hall, the King’s survey of the rain-blown tree tops and their susurrated voices was interrupted by the sound of footsteps that Thranduil knew nearly as well as he knew his own children’s. An exchange of voices followed – Linwe’s, interrogative with an undertone of imperative; Theli’s, cheerful with a hint of exasperation; and finally Fileg’s, amused, and then offering what sounded, even from too far away to properly make out the words, like something of a compromise.

Then there was a taken-aback exclamation from Theli, followed by the sound of footsteps resuming. The same familiar strides, but now Linwe’s footsteps were heavier, as if he were carrying something. Someone?

Thranduil turned away from the window, his curiosity now piqued. Theli was Thranduil’s sometimes-friend. That friendship was a legacy of the peculiar fellowships brought about by war, which had by some strange alchemy of circumstances survived unto the present day. Fileg liked Theli, which was not much of a surprise because Fileg liked most people. But Linwe tolerated Theli only because he was one of the Greenwood’s best battlefield healers, and had little use for him otherwise.

So it was somewhat surprising to see Linwe hauling Theli back into the little-used sitting room that Thranduil had laid claim to for his ruminations this afternoon. Linwe dropped Theli carefully back onto the settee he had occupied during his discussion with Thranduil, then fixed Thranduil with an intent, disapproving jade-eyed stare.

“What did I do?” the King asked irritably. Something about a disapproving stare from Linwe rarely failed to bring out his inner adolescent.

“How should we know, gwador?” Fileg answered in a good-humored tone, even though Thranduil’s question had clearly been directed at Linwe.

“He,” explained Linwe, nodding toward Theli with scant favor, “Declined to explain to us what he was doing here.”

Theli rolled his eyes and crossed his arms stubbornly, clearly unwilling to satisfy Linwe’s curiosity.

Thranduil chuckled wryly at the tableau. The reasons for Theli to be here were indeed few, and mostly limited to the realm of Thranduil having hurt himself and not having told anyone about it (which was, in fact, the case), or perhaps having ingested some kind of energy-enhancing substance to excess, and again, keeping it to himself. No, Linwe would not like Theli refusing to supply an answer to that question. 

Thranduil himself was pleased, although he did not know how long his luck would last. Still, it was well worth enjoying as long as it did, so he smirked at Theli, and asked, “So, who taught you discretion?” 

Theli made another disgusted face. Thranduil rather liked him for it. Few elves were willing to answer their monarch in such an insouciant fashion. Linwe and Fileg and Thranduil’s remaining family being an exception, of course.

Fileg sat down on the other end of the settee and lightly kicked Theli’s good foot, “Our friend the healer has recently enjoyed an extended stint as a patient himself,” Thranduil’s cousin and sworn brother reported, “It seems to have dimmed his enthusiasm for snitching on the hidden weaknesses of others.”

That got a weak smile from Theli, although he denied Fileg’s more cleverly worded request for information with a shake of his head, and a nettled answer of, “I’m not answerable to either of you. If Thranduil wants to talk about why I was here, that’s his business.”

“So you’ve decided that I was correct, then?” Thranduil asked, pleased with himself. He’d thought that his knee was just twisted.

Theli nodded with a half-smile, thought for a moment, then added, “And if you don’t know what to do to take care of the situation, then nobody does.”

It was a rather clever way of saying that Thranduil was a trouble-magnet who should know very well how to take it easy on a twisted joint. It was also a veiled threat to snitch if Theli did see Thranduil doing anything too strenuous later in the day, but for the nonce, it allowed Thranduil to retain his privacy on the matter, if he chose.

It left him a choice; and few elves understood how precious that was to someone whose life was so very circumscribed by duty. Thranduil was not allowed to be injured or weakened and have no one know about it; on his shoulders rested the safety of them all. And besides that, he was fortunate enough to be well-loved by his friends and remaining family. But sometimes the two circumstances could be difficult to tell apart, the one from the other. 

Having the rare luxury of choice gave Thranduil the patience to explain, “I twisted my knee during this morning’s patrol.” Thranduil, the bulk of the North Hall garrison, and Thranduil’s guards, had spent the morning clearing out a spider infestation to the south, along the Enchanted River. Linwe had more recently arrived with his company, which had been on a longer patrol, further to the south.

Fileg tilted his head, considering that.

Linwe asked critically, “Did it happen when you dismounted from Daeroch at a gallop to behead a giant spider which was only trying to escape?”

“It was pregnant,” seethed Thranduil, who had developed an especial hatred of the cursed arachnids since they had been used to do away with the evidence of his wife’s and his children’s murders.

“It wasn’t worth dying over,” Linwe corrected, his eyes glittering with anger, frustration, and behind all that, love.

“Aren’t you well-informed?” Thranduil asked his slightly older sworn-brother, switching tactics.

“Someone has to be,” Linwe said, with a reproving glance for the still unrepentant Thranduil, and then, for good measure, another glare for Theli.

“Since I’m still here,” said Theli, leaning forward, “Why don’t I take a look? I am sure that it’s just twisted from the way that you were standing. But I brought some salve that will stimulate healing, get you back to full fitness quicker.”

Thranduil silently weighed the merits of that, versus his general dislike of being fussed over.

“Thranduil,” Linwe interrupted, “It’s him, here and now. Or it’s us going to see Nestorion, directly.”

Given that set of options, Thranduil gave Theli and his offer a reluctant nod. Theli was less inclined to scold than Nestorion. And not to mention, his authority could be flouted far more lightly, should Thranduil choose to do so at some point in the future. 

Theli hesitated long enough to give Linwe a bemused look, before turning his attention to Thranduil’s knee. Thranduil sat down on the old armchair facing the settee.

“I’ve got it, Theli,” Fileg offered, before Theli could get up to maneuver Thranduil’s boot off of his foot without jarring his knee. A task which, Thranduil realized, would have been difficult, given Theli’s own still-healing injuries.

“Thank you, Fileg,” said Theli, with an apologetic smile, likely for his earlier rudeness.

Fileg managed to take off the boot, and then to untuck Thranduil’s stocking from his leggings, without causing Thranduil any pain at all. Then Thranduil waved him away, choosing to push up his own leggings gingerly over the just slightly swollen flesh of his knee by himself.

Theli pushed himself off the settee, then moved to sit gracelessly by Thranduil’s injured knee, with one leg held out straight ahead of him. 

The healer clapped his hands together smartly several times, then rubbed them vigorously. Only then did he place his now warm fingers against Thranduil’s knee.

“Just overstretched the muscle a little,” the younger elf murmured, his eyes and mind intent on the joint in front of him rather than on the other elves in the room, including his patient, “Just here.”

“I know that,” Thranduil objected, mildly vexed.

“Hmm,” said Theli neutrally, habitually unperturbed by his King’s show of temper. Then he took a pot of whitish-blue ointment out of his tunic pocket .

“It will be hot, then cold, as I know you know,” Theli explained, “But it will be hot a little longer than usual.”

“What have you done to it?” Thranduil asked, mildly curious despite himself.

“Added a touch of Mallorn tree sap,” Theli related, “The healers in Lothlorien use it in almost everything. As much as they use makes the salve stickier than is ideal without adding much, I think, but just a touch of it helps to reach down to the muscle and start the healing quicker.”

Thranduil nodded, and just barely avoided a hiss as the ointment did, indeed, prove to be hotter than usual. But the pain and the discomfort passed quickly. The medicated salve was doing its job, and Theli had good hands, even for a healer. He wasn’t on Lord Elrond’s level or even Master Nestorion’s, but he knew how to give a massage that stimulated all of the right muscles to aid in the healing process.

“There,” said Theli, after a final examination of Thranduil’s knee, “Best to let the salve set in for another few minutes,” he recommended, “That way it’s less likely to stain your clothes.”

“Speaking of stains,” began Fileg, as he pointed to the cherry-red splotches on the carpet half-covered by Theli’s blue healer’s robe with a barely-hidden smile, “Please tell me that you didn’t throw that medicine at Theli, Thranduil.”

“He hasn’t done that in years!,” protested Theli, who apparently thought he was helping.

“Good for you, gwador,” praised Fileg, with his eyes still smiling, the impudent brat! Then Fileg went on to observe, “Isn’t that the cherry-flavored pain-killer that you used to give to Brasseniel and Cenedru when they were still elflings, Theli?”

“It’s not JUST for elflings,” Theli pointed out, doing a fairly bad job of lying about that.

“Should Thranduil have something for the pain?” Linwe asked.

Theli ignored Linwe, somewhat fool-hardy fellow that he was, and addressed his answer to Thranduil instead, “If you’ll drink it, I think that some willow-bark tea should be enough to dull the pain. Based on how you’re moving and the look of your knee, that is.”

“He’ll drink it,” said Linwe.

Theli’s eyes didn’t waver from Thranduil’s face.

“What he said,” Thranduil conceded after a moment, with a smug nod towards Linwe, who rolled his eyes.

“Well enough, then,” said Theli. Instead of hopping up to his feet like he normally would after tending to Thranduil’s knee – something that had happened more times in the past than Thranduil really liked to count – Theli looked around, then leaned backwards and scooted towards the settee. He placed one hand on the cushions, and used that to begin levering himself to his feet, in such a way as to leave as much of his weight as possible off of his left leg.

Fileg came to his rescue again, placing an arm under Theli’s shoulder and helping the shorter elf to his feet.

“Thanks,” said Theli, with his normal ebullient grin. Turning his attention back to Thranduil, Theli promised, “I’ll have whoever’s on duty in the kitchens send up the tea. You’ll still be here?”

“Wait,” Thranduil commanded, regarding Theli more intently than he usually did, “Sit down, Theli. Your turn,” he said, with a gesture towards his knee, and then towards Theli’s swollen left knee.

Theli tilted his head pensively, and considered his King for a few moments.

“No,” he decided at length, “You’re not my healer. You don’t need to see.”

“I’m your friend,” Thranduil countered levelly.

“And I’m yours,” Theli said with a faint smile that was half-apology, half-affection, and no movement whatsoever towards obeying his King’s instruction.

Thranduil considered simply ordering the younger elf to do as he was told, but that wouldn’t necessarily work. Not with any of his real friends, this one included. Thranduil was morbidly curious to see what Theli’s knee looked like, well over a year since a pack of orcs had done their worst to make sure that their aggravating elven captive never walked again. And more, he felt a responsibility to force himself to face what still-lingering harm his own stubborn order of exile had inadvertently led his healer into.

Linwe and Fileg were quiet, but Thranduil could practically feel the weight of the glances passing back and forth between his two sworn-brothers. That they would assure him that Theli’s injuries were no fault of his, the King had no doubt. But that didn’t change Thranduil’s sense of responsibility for his healer’s injuries.

“I have a right to my privacy, too,” Theli said quietly, “I’ve gotten peered at and poked at and prodded at by every healer in Lothlorien and now the Greenwood. And I’m probably going to get poked and prodded at again today.”

“Almost assuredly,” agreed Fileg brightly, “Master Nestorion was looking for you, when we ran into him on our way here. Something about only working half-days, wasn’t it, Lin?”

“Something like that,” Linwe agreed, now hiding a smile of his own.

Thranduil felt a little badly about that, since Theli had only limped all the way up here to save his King the spectacle of being sought out and lectured by someone else. He could have easily just told Master Nestorion, or one of the other royal healers, that Thranduil had gotten injured again, and spared himself a painful walk up a very long and narrow set of stairs. 

Thranduil decided that he felt badly enough about that to let the matter go. Part of him felt guilty for not taking this opportunity to see for himself what were arguably the consequences of his sending Theli – and Fileg – away in a fit of temper. And another part of him was glad to be spared the sight. Thranduil was no stranger to injuries, even serious ones. He was no stranger to the aftermath of torture by the Enemy’s servants. But it was always hard, to see those type of injuries on the body of a friend. Especially one whom Thranduil had himself sent into danger, although that was, as everyone present except for Thranduil would undoubtedly point out, not exactly what had happened.

“Very well,” Thranduil said, nodding towards the door, “Away with you then, my Lord Ecthelion. Do give Master Nestorion my regards.” In other words, if Theli mentioned Thranduil’s knee to the Master Healer who loved Thranduil almost as if the King were his own child, then Thranduil would make Theli regret it.

Theli rolled his eyes again, saying without words that if he was going to snitch to Master Nestorion about Thranduil’s injury, he’d already had no end of opportunities to do so. 

Thranduil had to hide a smile at that. Fileg chuckled, and Linwe gave the healer an unimpressed look. Then Thranduil’s flame-haired friend sighed, and walked over to the much shorter healer.

“You shouldn’t walk back down the stairs, especially without the cane you left at the landing,” Linwe told Theli, “I’ll give you a ride.”

“Thank you,” said Theli, appearing bemused and a little incredulous, and then taking a cautious step backwards.

Thranduil could understand why. In addition to his duties as a healer, Theli had sometimes been a soldier in Thranduil’s army. For some of that time, he’d been a soldier in Linwe’s unit, and not always a particularly obedient or attentive one. From having had Theli under his ultimate command in only two situations, Thranduil had to concede that the younger elf made a far better healer than a soldier. So Thranduil couldn’t blame Linwe, who’d had to deal with Theli the less-than-optimal soldier, for being less than enamored with him. 

Whether Linwe’s offer was in part to thank Theli for having rather adroitly avoided letting Thranduil add a picture to the blame he already bore for the younger elf’s getting hurt in Lothlorien, or for having traipsed all the way up to Thranduil’s thinking-place on his own to tend to an injury that only Theli had noticed, Thranduil didn’t know. It might even just be Linwe’s sense of responsibility to a soldier who had been, after however irregular of a fashion, his own for many years.

“Thank you,” Theli repeated, and then babbled, “But I’d really rather walk, I need the exercise you know.”

Theli was now attempting to step-hop behind Fileg, who unhelpfully moved out of the way. Thranduil sat back in his chair, rather enjoying the spectacle of Linwe chasing someone who wasn’t Thranduil.

Linwe reached out a hand and laid it on Theli’s shoulder, squeezing gently, “Don’t be ridiculous,” he lectured with more than patience than he usually had for most elves, let alone one who often annoyed him, “I can tell that you’re hurting, and that your stomach is upset. I’ll walk carefully, for my sake as well as yours. And I want a word with Master Nestorion anyway.” 

“Tattle-tale,” Thranduil accused his older gwador.

Linwe didn’t even bother to deny it. He carefully picked Theli up, cradling the younger elf in his arms.

Theli’s midnight-blue eyes twinkled with merriment, preparing Thranduil for some joke, but not for the elfling’s tale reference the healer came up with.

“Why, grandmother,” Theli jested to Linwe, “What strong arms you have!”

“Is my line, ‘The better to feed you to the angry Master Healer with?’” Linwe joked back, rather surprising Thranduil again. Linwe then proceeded to take Theli off in the direction of the stairs, leaving Thranduil alone with just Fileg.

Which had been, once upon a time, not that odd a circumstance. Fileg had given up soldiering to be one of Thranduil’s guards, after Thranduil became King. Often, it had been Thranduil going somewhere, and Fileg keeping him company in the quiet moments between. Then Thranduil had married Minaethel, who, like Fileg, was a distant cousin of Thranduil’s. And then it had been the three of them, Thranduil, Minathiel, and his cousin and best friend Fileg, enjoying the stillness in between all of the being King and Queen.

For everything that Minaethiel had been to Thranduil, wife and best friend and mother of his elflings, he could never forget, in these moments, that it had been Fileg who was Minaethiel’s friend, before she even knew Thranduil. Thranduil had lost his wife, who had been his best friend. But before she had been Thranduil’s best friend, she had been Fileg’s. He missed her, too. And Thranduil had failed him, too, by letting Minaethiel and their children, and Fileg’s daughter, go on that trading trip without him.

“If you keep thinking along those lines,” Fileg told him, his tone firm despite the affection and the sorrow he normally kept hidden beneath his surface cheer, “then I am going to kick you on your sore knee.”

“No, you won’t,” Thranduil drawled, pulling a pillow from behind his back to throw at Fileg, “You’re too afraid of Linwe.”

“I am not!” Fileg protested, after a very satisfactory ‘oomph,’ when the pillow hit his face, “And, once I explain why I did it, Linwe won’t even get mad at me, so there!” he said, in the sing-song tone of a much younger elfling. He accompanied the juvenile taunt by sticking his tongue out at Thranduil, which got him the laugh he’d been aiming for, to judge by his satisfied expression.

It also moved them past that moment. That horrible, frigid moment in nearly every conversation they had between just the two of them. The moment when Thranduil – or Fileg, because sometimes it was Fileg – realized that Minaethiel was missing. That she wasn’t there, that she wouldn’t ever be there again, not until their war was won and they sailed West. Or until their war was lost, and they were reborn in a West where, if Elrond and Galadriel were to be believed, the Valar themselves would be readying the elves for War with a Sauron empowered by all the blood he had shed in reaching victory on Middle Earth.

“That Moment” usually went unspoken, by both of them. But for some reason, this time Fileg felt the need to say something about it.

“You know that Theli’s getting hurt wasn’t your fault, don’t you, Thranduil?” Fileg asked, unaccustomedly serious.

If he’d been any less serious, Thranduil would have responded as if his inquiry had been a jest. He would have responded with an airy ‘Of course I do, what do I look like to you, an idiot?’

But Fileg was in earnest, and the Valar had given Fileg, by whatever quirk of cousinly bloodlines, eyes of exactly the same shade of blue as Minaethiel’s. It was almost as if it was her asking, and for her, Thranduil had to tell the truth.

“He wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t sent him, Fileg,” Thranduil said hoarsely, “And neither would you have been. I did that, I sent you away, you and what was left of your family, you and Calmarille, Ridhae, Brasseniel, and Cenedru.”

“Not all that was left of my family,” Fileg said, his blue eyes mourning but resolved, and so very kind, “You are my family, too. You, and Legolas and Thalion, and Linwe, and Raina, and Raina and Veassen’s children.”

“And I separated you and your wife and your children from the rest of us, made you leave everything you knew when you were grieving just as much as I,” Thranduil said, hating himself with every word.

Then Fileg did kick him, although it wasn’t on his twisted knee. It was on his good shin.

Thranduil didn’t even protest, so guilty did he feel. Fileg’s answer to that was to kick him again. On the same shin, even harder.

“Ow! Blast it, what is wrong with you? I’m trying to apologize!” Thranduil roared, his temper all but gone away with him again. Sorrow was so close to anger, sometimes.

“And I’m trying to tell you,” Fileg said fiercely, his blue eyes blazing, “That I’m glad. That I’m glad that you sent me – sent us – away.”

Disbelieving, it was all Thranduil could do to even bring himself together enough to ask, “In the Valar’s name, Fileg, why? Were you truly so angry with me, that you wanted to leave?”

“No, gwador, never that,” Fileg assured him, taking a seat on the arm of the chair at Thranduil’s side, “But I was lost. I couldn’t sort out what of the grief I was feeling was mine at Mina’s death, and what was yours. I couldn’t tell when I wanted to weep because I was missing my lost daughter Sedilien, or when I was mourning your daughter. When Celeborn told you that we had to abandon Emyn Duir, the home of our children’s happy elflinghoods, I couldn’t separate out my fear for your Thalion from my fear for my Ridhae. I needed the space, Thranduil. To figure out what was me, what was my feeling bereft, and what was you, and your feelings of loss.”

“But that wasn’t why I sent you,” Thranduil berated himself, “I sent you because I lost my temper.”

“Think about it a little more carefully, gwador,” Fileg said intently, “Don’t think about what you said to me. Think about what you wanted for me.”

“I wanted you to stop hurting,” Thranduil whispered, thinking back to the moment when his faith and his pride in his own ability to protect the Wood had been challenged, and he’d snapped at Celeborn, Theli, and Fileg. 

Satisfied, Fileg nodded, “Yes. And where did you send me?”

“To my self-righteous cousin Celeborn,” Thranduil said self-mockingly, purposely misunderstanding Fileg’s point.

This time Fileg reached over to tug on the end of one of Thranduil’s warrior’s braids, instead of kicking him. It was marginally more annoying. Thranduil slapped his hand away.

“Where?” Fileg asked again, apparently perfectly content to keep asking the question until he got a true answer.

With a sigh, Thranduil looked back through the mists of his own anger and hurt, which had for once been more aimed at Celeborn than his wife. Then Thranduil admitted, “I sent you to Galadriel. Because I thought that if anyone would understand what it meant to lose a cousin who was such a dear friend, it would be her.”

“Yes,” said Fileg, first stroking Thranduil’s hair and then resting his own head on top of his gwador’s, “Even though you don’t really like spending time with her yourself.” 

“It wasn’t about what I liked,” Thranduil replied, moving his hand to clasp Fileg’s, “It was about what you needed. And I’m glad that when you came back, you came back more heart-whole. And I’m sorry that I had to send you away again so quickly.”

“You’re the Aran, gwador,” Fileg chided him, squeezing his hand tightly for a moment, “I’ve known about that, or at least known about that being who you might someday be, since nearly the start of our being friends. And you’re my Aran. I didn’t like having to leave you again before we had a chance to really talk, but you needed someone to go and talk to the Northmen, in their city. Someone whom they would actually listen to. I’m glad that I could do that for you. Proud, even.”

Thranduil squeezed Fileg’s hand back, accepting all of that. For the first time, truly accepting it, that he hadn’t hurt his cousin and gwador as terribly as he’d thought that he had. To move past the intensity of that moment, Thranduil said lightly, “Well, someone had to reassure them. For your sins, the Northmen seem willing to treat on an even-handed basis only with you or Luthavar.”

Fileg laughed. Lifting his head up, he teased, “Yes, they said something about only the two of us not being as stuffy, hidebound, and icicle-like as most elven nobles.”

“I’m sure that they did,” Thranduil said mockingly, although in truth he had little doubt that some of them thought that, even if they hadn’t out-and-out said it. “The Men of Gondor and the Chieftains of Lost Arnor do fine with almost any of our diplomats, but for the less-civilized Northmen and Woodsmen of the East Bight, it’s you or Luthavar. And I needed him for the South.” Which Thranduil didn’t really want to think about. 

“He’ll be fine, gwador,” Fileg reprimanded lightly, “You sent him with enough protection to make a foray into Mordor itself.”

Thranduil couldn’t hide a shudder, “Don’t even jest about that, Fileg.”

“You’re right. I won’t. Not again,” Fileg promised.

Thranduil searched for something to move his mind off of that subject, and off of the missing Veassen, the lost fourth in their circle of blood-brothers, who had died protecting Thranduil’s wife and children and Fileg’s daughter. Veassen was – had been – even better at reassuring Thranduil than Fileg was becoming. Fileg, before the death of so much of their family, had often been too tempted to say something outrageous to be really good at comforting. Veassen had been the one who was good at reassuring Thranduil, and at getting Thranduil to see the other side of one issue or another.

But now, it seemed like Fileg was stepping into Veassen’s shoes in that way. Thranduil wondered if something similar was happening with him, or with Linwe. Were they all becoming stretched out versions of themselves? Losing some of the bits of themselves which made them unique, just to stretch to cover some of the missing spaces left behind by Minaethiel’s and Veassen’s absences?

It was Fileg who changed the subject, asking playfully, “Thranduil, keep in mind that I have just spent the past months with the very officious Lord Arlamor playing the role of my secretary, and . . .

“Better you than me,” Thranduil muttered, feeling a little bit badly for having inflicted Arlamor on Fileg. Although he hadn’t even been aware that he’d done so. After putting the recently returned Fileg in charge of the Northmen expedition, Thranduil had left the rest of the work of staffing it to Herdir, and to his young cousin Lothgail, who had taken her lost brother Coruthelion’s place as Luthavar’s chief apprentice. But Thranduil had rather enjoyed the absence of Arlamor during the same months that he’d missed Fileg. Idly, he wondered whether there was something else Herdir could send the tedious, swollen-headed young fellow off to do . . .

“Yes, lucky you,” Fileg conceded, “But after just having finished with that experience, which included, by the way, trying to keep Arlamor from stepping on the Northmen’s toes, which was NOT an easy thing to do, I have to ask . . . please, please tell me that you weren’t jesting when you addressed our artless Theli as a Lord?”

Thranduil tipped his face up with a smile, “I wasn’t jesting. It’ll take a while to get all of the official nonsense sorted out. But it should all be done in time to annoy Arlamor and his ilk before Council convenes after the autumn rains let up.”

One sound that Thranduil had very much missed was Fileg’s merry laugh. It made Linwe smile, too, as he came back through the door carrying a tray with the promised tea, as well as cider, fruit and cheese.

“I can’t wait to see their faces,” Fileg gasped, once he had caught his breath.

“Whose faces?” Linwe asked, after placing the tray on a table and then bringing the table close to Thranduil’s chair.

“Specifically, young Lord Arlamor’s,” Thranduil said lazily, “Although also others amongst the stuffier members of my court, when they learn that the healer you were just carting around is the newest lord of our Great Greenwood. Well, what is left of it anyway.”

Linwe gave Thranduil a skeptical look, “I’d been hoping that was a jest.”

That made Fileg laugh again.

“How is he?” Thranduil asked.

“Fine. But he’d be better if he listened to his healers, Nestorion says, so it’s no wonder that he’s got so much sympathy for you,” Linwe related.

Thranduil rolled his eyes, then asked, “And what did Master Nestorion say about my knee?”

Without even attempting to deny that he’d asked the Master Healer, Linwe answered, “That Theli is a competent healer, even if he’s a hopeless patient, and that if he says your knee just needs resting and tea, then that’s what it needs.”

“Amazing,” Thranduil observed sarcastically, “That’s exactly what I would have said, had anyone bothered to ask me.”

Fileg snorted, “Thranduil, don’t even try to act as if you’re good about reporting injuries in the appropriate manner. Or at all, for that matter.”

“Drink your tea,” said Linwe. Thranduil did, in part because he was hoping to avoid further discussion of the whole matter of hiding injuries. It wasn’t Linwe’s favorite of Thranduil’s several bad habits. 

“What were you talking about with Theli, which led you to the novel idea of ennobling him?” Fileg asked.

“I was deciding not to leave,” Thranduil replied, the words feeling lighter as he said them, “And not to send Legolas away.”

Fileg only nodded thoughtfully.

Linwe, on the other hand, regarded Thranduil incredulously, “You were discussing that, with him?”

Thranduil declined to explain.

“It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds, Lin. Theli’s got a way of talking that helps you listen to yourself more clearly,” Fileg said, “Thranduil’s cousin Celeborn could likely explain it better, now that they’ve become friends.”

“I’m sure that he could,” said Thranduil scathingly. Thranduil was sure that he liked Theli, but he was really not sure if he liked sharing Celeborn with Theli as well as with Elrond, Haldir, Orophin, Rumil, and Fileg, for that matter. 

Fileg lifted a palm in the elven equivalent of a shrug, clearly willing to let the issue go. Somberly, he said, “We’re glad that you reached those decisions, gwador, however it was that you came to them. We couldn’t do this without you, and if you sent Legolas away, there wouldn’t be enough left of you here to fight on." 

Thranduil couldn’t deny that Fileg had the right of that, and he didn’t want to dwell on it. Instead, he simply nodded, and then changed the subject.

“How was your patrol, Lin?”

“More exciting than we had hoped,” Linwe reported, his jade green eyes glinting in frustration.

Thranduil nodded grimly. Unfortunately, that was the same feeling he’d been getting from the news brought by the northward winds through the trees.

“We’ll get through this together, gwador,” said Linwe quietly. “Just like we did last time.”

“Last time we had almost half again our current number of armed elves, Linwe,” Thranduil observed quietly.

“It doesn’t matter, Thranduil,” said Fileg, with Minaethiel’s inexhaustible hope in his eyes, “Everyone who is still here is determined to win. That’s better than last time. Last time about half of us had already given up.”

“We still have Rochendil,” Linwe noted, “And the better half of our actual field commanders. Many of those who left had always been better suited to a peace-time military. I won’t miss you having to maneuver around them while the rest of us sooth ruffled feathers in your wake.”

Fileg laughed, “Since when did you ever soothe ruffled feathers, Linwe? That was usually . . .” Fileg paused before saying Veassen’s name, and instead ended, “That was usually someone else’s job.”

Linwe ignored that, and instead continued listing positives, “And we have a solid set of reserves. Including, Eru help me, Theli.”

“I thought that you had refused to take him back?” Thranduil asked, vaguely interested.

“I’d take him back in a second as a healer alone, if he’d agree to stick to that,” Linwe clarified, “If he keeps trying to be both a healer and a soldier, he’s likely to get himself killed, like Parrochil did. But if I don’t take him, someone else will. He’s not the best swordsman, but he’s not bad either, and he keeps his head. We’re going to need him.”

“And all of our other one-time soldiers turned to peace time trades,” Thranduil added, worrying over Fileg’s son Cenedru, among others. Fileg’s older son Ridhae was a soldier born. Thranduil didn’t like that he was sending Ridhae off to risk his life, but at least that was what Ridhae had always wanted to do with his life, and he was good at it. The same went for Thranduil’s foster-son, Thalion.

But Fileg’s younger son Cenedru wanted to be an architect. He was a good architect-in-training, from everything that Thranduil had seen. But he had also passed the basic arms training required for candidacy in Greenwood’s military, and there was no doubt in Thranduil’s mind that they were going to need him. Valar help them all. 

Fileg nodded somberly, then brought up one of Thranduil’s most aching worries, “Legolas will be eligible for military service in less than a century, gwador.”

“I know,” said Thranduil, and nothing more. What else was there to say? Legolas already had the makings of an excellent archer, and his chubby little hand already held his toy lead-weighted wooden sword as if he knew what he was doing. Which he did. He had the best teachers. That was the best Thranduil could do, because he knew his baby son. And he knew that Legolas would not be left out of this fight.

“He’ll survive,” said Linwe firmly, “You did, after all. And you were worse than him.”

“Worse?” Thranduil asked irritably, although in truth he felt somewhat better, “What do you mean, worse?”

“Much worse,” Fileg added, with a grin of his own. 

“Well,” began Linwe, his jade-green eyes dancing, and Thranduil prepared to let Linwe and Fileg tease him out of his worries. There were only three of them now, not five. But they still fit together. And they would get through this next siege together. Here, in this airy room at the top of the North Hall, Thranduil had to have confidence in that.


End file.
